Truly Dreadful Film

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Let's get one thing straight. This movie isn't historically accurate. It is much more a movie about the relationship between a grandmaster and his respected opponent's daughter than a biography of Ip Man. That being said, if you know that's what the movie is going to be, it isn't a bad film after all. There have been countless movies about Ip Man and it's refreshing to get something else than more worship for a historical character whose legacy is bigger than the character really was. I'm not saying Ip Man wasn't a fascinating character with a strong moral compass who had an important influence on martial arts cultures, but after Ip Man, Ip Man 2, Ip Man 3, The Legend is Born - Ip Man, Ip Man: The Final Fight and The Legend of Bruce Lee, the world doesn't need another blockbuster that tells us what great guy he was.The problem of this movie is something completely different. It has a shallow story partially based on fiction and partially based on facts that could be described in four sentences. Southern grandmaster starts to care about Northern grandmaster's daughter despite being married. Northern heir apparent collaborates with Japanese invaders and kills his master. Northern grandmaster's daughter vows to take revenge instead of getting married, having children and teaching martial arts. After getting her revenge, she meets the Northern grandmaster in exile and they talk about what could or couldn't have been if fate had been gentler to them.Wong Kar-Wai's movies always had a slow and philosophical touch but they had a mysterious and even slightly supernatural touch that made Ashes of Time so profound and 2046 so dreamy. The Grandmaster is slow and philosophical but is missing the unique atmosphere and content of the other two movies. If the film were seventy-five minutes long without unnecessary flashbacks and side stories, it would be a very good movie. Clocking in around two hours, depending on which of the versions you might have come across, this movie loses momentum and turns out being slightly above average.The fact that this movie is still slightly above average and not a complete disappointment is related to three reasons. First of all, the movie's cinematography is gorgeous. Images and words are carefully chosen, the change of seasons and weather is portrayed perfectly and the fight scenes are particularly elegant and almost poetic by honouring the essence of the wu xia genre. The director might at times overuse the natural symbols and the slow-motion camera effects but these elements are still beautiful to watch. Secondly, the movie has a slightly gloomy atmosphere from start to finish that keeps it together despite the at times random time-line. The film shows us examples of resilience despite severe hardship. On the other side, the movie also keeps a different message for us: you have to see beyond the boundaries to become who you deserve to be. Thirdly, the acting performances are solid. Tony Leung is authentic as calm and wise grandmaster who still has his minor flaws and weaknesses. I really liked his balanced portrait of the character which is a welcome change in comparison to the numerous movies worshipping Ip Man. The most stunning actress is Zhang Ziyi in this film. She convinces as ambitious, proud and smart young woman who progressively becomes bitter, nostalgic and tired. This gradual transformation is absolutely haunting to watch and would have been even more efficient without the use of flashbacks. That being said, it's difficult to escape her genuinely beautiful and elegant appearance on screen which makes the character's fate even gloomier. The fight scenes in the movie are very poetic but so are Zhang Ziyi's costumes, face and movements and she remains credible as her father's skilled avenger. Nobody could have played this role better than her.In the end, if you are familiar with Wong Kar-Wai philosophical and poetic wu xia movies, you will also appreciate The Grandmaster. The acting performances are very good, the cinematography is beautiful and the movie has a gloomy vibe while still delivering a hopeful message. If you are looking for a historically accurate portrait of Ip Man or if you are expecting a vivid martial arts flick as the movies starring Donnie Yen, you might not get what you want. In the end, this is a martial arts movie that really focuses on the second part of its expression: arts.

Wong Kar Wei once invented a visual style that has been revolutionary. That's quite some time ago. In The Grandmaster it seems to me like he quotes himself, repeats himself, tries to make every scene remarkable and symbolic. With the result that the movie drowns in baroque pictures which do not correspond with the storyline. The camera is moving all the time, always there is something between us an the actors... a curtain, a window, fog... whatsoever. It is no martial arts film, although there is martial arts in it. But it is not a character driven movie as well, because there is to little narration, to little development. I could not integrate the figure of Razor until I read some comments and explanations. And the wife of Ip Man, who seems to be so important in the beginning, just vanishes somehow from the story plot. So do his children. All in all: very disappointing! And so much weaker than the wonderful Ip Man-movies starring Donnie Yen.

Okay, to be honest, I was confused through most of the film. The sudden pause of the sequences and the text "break" were tiring and a little all over the place. And the ending... you will think that it's going to end, but then another sequence appears and another and another. It's like the film makers didn't want to let go. The film is based on real events, though the kung fu fights were so beautiful, they seemed like they were taken from the lovely Chinese war fantasies, with the long swords and the kings, not to mention the air fighting scenes. The way the kung fu move interacted with the natural elements was magical and of course the rain fighting scene was excellent, in my opinion, the best of the whole movie. You can feel the values of the kung fu throughout the movie, with the "schools" of the art and the loyalty towards the master. I think that that was the one thing the movie wanted to come through the audience, and if so, then they succeeded beautifully. The performances, lastly, were nice, though the costumes could have been better. So, 4 out of 10.

As is my practice, I'll read a handful of other reviewers on the film in question, and in doing so here, everyone I read seemed to have some knowledge of the Ip Man history and the films dealing with the subject. I harbor no such knowledge or background. Quite honestly, I pick up these modern day martial arts films for their visual beauty and skillful presentation of fighting styles and not for the story per se because they're almost always the same. This picture offered some well choreographed fight scenes, many of them on surfaces that should have been a hindrance to maintaining coordination and balance, such as on snow and in the rain. Instead of brightly colored backgrounds, the general rendition here was primarily dark and unappealing. Unlike some other reviewers, I didn't have a lot of trouble following the story as it were; whether it had anything remotely to do with historical accuracy I have no way of knowing. Many times a picture will leave me with the desire to learn more about a subject by the way it sets the table; this movie's failure in that regard left me feeling indifferent.